Saturday, September 05, 2009

Cor, he's a Shearwater

With a 3-4 West-nor-west this morning, and no new migrants on the land, along with an overnight departure of yesterdays birds (including the Icky), I settled down for a morning of data entry on the computer (a big job when you have as many seabird nests to monitor as we do). Just minutes after turing on the computer, Head Warden David Steele called us on the radio to warn us that some lads seawatching down the coast at Newbiggin had just had a Cory's Shearwater heading North. Myself and fellow brownsman warden Adam Scott needed no further excuses to abandon work (come on, it's a Saturday) and headed down to the seawatching spot at the Brownsman South End. It wasnt looking good, with the few manxies that were moving being very far out and with the morning sun right in our faces, we weren't feeling overly confident that we would get the bird.
After an hour, the sky started to cloud over things were looking a little easier, maybe we had a chance. 80 minutes after the Newbiggin sighting, a sudden radio shout from Inner Farne, they had the bird and it was heading our way. After a few frantic seconds searching through distant manxies, the beast loomed into view no more than 300 metres offshore, and slowly sauntered past, giving me my best views ever of this awesome seabird. it showed so well that I was able to pass the scope on to Adam, giving him great views of a British Tick and I even managed to grab a few photos that could just possibly be classed as 'record shots'.
This was an excellent example of how good communication between coastal sites can allow plenty of people to enjoy great birds like this, so many thanks to the guys down at Newbiggin, Cheers Lads!!!







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